Blair Witch Scares Audience With Terror Of The Unknown

The Blair Witch Project is a taut and engrossing horror film. By now, just about everyone not residing in a cave knows the basic plot outline of the film: a group of young filmmakers venture into the Maryland wilderness in order to make a documentary about a supernatural being who may or may not live in these woods. A series of increasingly disturbing and unusual occurrences happen to them as their disbelief in the witch legend turns to terrified faith in the supernatural.

The entire film is billed as footage that was found a few years after the disappearance of the filmmakers. This framing device is a stroke of genius, since it gives an aura of reality to the film. This aura is vital during some segments of the film; without it, much of the movie would be absurd because of its implausibility. This framing device makes it easier to at least partially suspend disbelief.

Two types of film are used: the black and white stock on which the movie within the movie is being filmed and the color hand-held camera that one of the characters uses to record a souvenir of the making of the "documentary." Both of these types of film are nicely consistent with The Blair Witch Project's storyline, and as such, aid to the authenticity of the story.

What makes The Blair Witch Project such a commendable film is its unconventional means for producing terror in its audience. Instead of relying on expensive and often tedious special effects to produce its chills, it thrills the audience with what is not shown. The film's footage does not include any witch or other supernatural apparition, but instead focuses on the characters' reactions to the awful things they see. The film forces the viewer to use his or her own imagination to conjure up what is so terrifying, assuming that whatever horrible things haunt the audience's psyches are much scarier than anything they could artificially produce.

While this is a convincing horror film, it is not without its problems. While it is certainly encouraging if this film sparks a renaissance of well-crafted horror films, its inherent drawbacks cannot be ignored. The major problem with the film is its reliance on the anguished screams of its characters to produce some of the tension. All of this screaming and yelling becomes somewhat tedious towards the end of the film, as it increases in both frequency and volume.

What the directors seem to have forgotten is that the intensity of the earlier scenes was not accomplished by incessant screaming, but by the eerie and foreboding silence that was present throughout the film. Indeed, the sound editors could have taken a cue from the film's cinematographers and let us hear a minimum of screaming. By making the unknown, unseen, and unheard much more terrifying than what we can identify and dismiss, the film would have been much more frightening.

It is fitting that such a rebirth in the horror film industry would occur now, with the recent death of George C. Scott. Scott was an actor in many films of several different types. One of his films was The Changeling, a unique horror film which, in the same vein as The Blair Witch Project, frightened and thrilled the audience with the unknown.

One of the most terrifying scenes in The Changeling is the sight of a small red rubber ball bouncing down a staircase. The scariest scene in Blair Witch is a man standing in a corner with his back to the camera. These two things are innocuous in and of themselves. However, when they are utilized correctly by a good director, they become instruments of terror.